Queer and Loathing: Rants and Raves of a Raging AIDS Clone (18 page)
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Authors: David B. Feinberg
Tags: #Biographies & Memoirs, #Memoirs, #Gay & Lesbian, #Nonfiction, #Literature & Fiction, #Essays & Correspondence, #Essays, #Politics & Social Sciences, #Social Sciences, #Specific Demographics, #Lesbian; Gay; Bisexual & Transgender eBooks, #LGBT Studies, #Gay Studies
BOOK: Queer and Loathing: Rants and Raves of a Raging AIDS Clone
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The major disadvantage of going to his apartment for sex is that you have to dress. You don’t always have cab fare. You may need to go to a cash machine, and not all of them are open at three in the morning. You may need to bring over your own poppers. You may need to carry your contact-lens case, Water Pik, dental floss, and mortar and pestle if you’re on ddI. If it’s raining, it can be hell getting a cab, even at three in the morning on Broadway and Fifty-second. He may be an early riser. He may have a dog. He may have a roommate. He may have a homicidal lover.
Try to agree on the behavior before you go with your boyfriend to a sex club such as Prism Gallery. You don’t want to be screamed at when you suggest a threesome and he says he’s not interested in having sex with you. Make sure you know the layout. It can be embarrassing having sex in a private cubicle and then finding out that he was watching you the entire time through the peephole without your knowledge. It can be distressing if he starts complaining that you never kiss him the way you kissed that stranger that night.
New York City is a land of bottoms. England is a land of bottoms. The entire universe is filled with bottoms. If you are a top, you will always be in demand. If you have a boyfriend, you should alternate playing top. It makes no sense to have those endless arguments about who was bottom for the past three nights in a row. Consider using a paperweight to mark the most recent position, or a reversible sweater. The situation can get mighty slippery, especially if lubrication has been applied.
Sex without ejaculation is like leaving a film noir ten minutes before the end.
There is no sex without guilt.
If it isn’t in
The New Joy of Gay Sex,
then I’d rather not hear about it.
The New Joy of Gay Sex,
then I’d rather not hear about it.
I was attempting a cross between Susan Sontag’s “Notes on ‘Camp’” and Fran Lebowitz’s “Notes on Trick.” I had been working on this piece for a few months when I was asked to review The New Joy of Gay Sex for QW. I immediately agreed. The New Joy of Gay Sex was basically review-proof: It was bound to be a best-seller. I was sure Julia Roberts would star in the movie and it would gross more than $100 million. Yet oddly enough, I became totally terrified at the awesome responsibility I had accepted. To write a fair review, wouldn’t I have to perform each and every act described in the pages? Why couldn’t I have gotten an easier assignment, like reviewing
The Fannie Farmer Cookbook or The Encyclopaedia Britannica?
The Fannie Farmer Cookbook or The Encyclopaedia Britannica?
I was so overwhelmed that I found I was unable to read the book. Instead, I merely tacked on the final note to my ongoing “Notes on Sex” and submitted it as a review, just as
QW
began its indefinite hiatus.
QW
began its indefinite hiatus.
Waiting for the End of the World
Thomas Alva Edison said that genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. As every writer knows, writing is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent procrastination—unless, of course, you’re the embarrassingly prolific Ethan Mordden, the gay Joyce Carol Oates, who has no doubt perfected the art of writing in his sleep and is probably polishing off an essay on Greta Garbo as he naps through another session, hopefully not this one. Or John Preston, who is editing his tenth anthology this year as we speak,
At Nine: Gay Men Talk about Their Fourth-Grade Teachers.
At Nine: Gay Men Talk about Their Fourth-Grade Teachers.
This is how I write. I sit down at the table and power up the PC. I notice that the flowers in the vase are drooping. I go out to the Korean deli across the street and pick up a fresh bouquet. I carefully arrange them. I power up the PC. I notice that there is an inch of dust on the mantel in the next room. I spend an hour or so Pledge-ing the mantelpiece, the television, the VCR, the stereo, the CD player, the lamp. I write my mother a letter. I power up the PC. Getting into a comfortable position, I inadvertently kick a Combat bait tray, which reminds me to check the sticker on the refrigerator, which tells me that I haven’t changed my roach repellent in seven months. I go out to the drugstore on Eighth Avenue and get some fresh Combat. I turn off the PC because it’s lunchtime. I call the phone-sex line and listen to the messages, stopping only after I’ve gone back to the message I had left eight hours earlier. With a start, I realize that I’ve forgotten to pay the rent and it’s already the fifth. I frantically search for my checkbook. Half an hour later, I find it in the vegetable crisper. I write the check. I mail it at the post office. On the way, I pick up my mail, which includes the latest issues of
Vanity Fair
and
Advocate Men.
Two hours later, I power up the PC. I go to the cabinet for a teacup. The shelf paper needs to be replaced. I reline the shelves. I write my mother another letter. I turn on the PC. My fingers are tense. Worried about carpal tunnel syndrome, I go to the gym to stretch out and relax. I come home and write a letter to my ex-boyfriend. I masturbate. I read a promotional brochure from World Gym on the Upper West Side and decide to join immediately (the special ends in five hours) because it is open twenty-four hours a day, so if I ever feel the urge to write at three-thirty in the morning I will always have an alternative. I realize I’m almost out of paper and take a train downtown to my favorite stationery store and buy a ream of paper and a magazine to read on the subway back home. I turn on my PC. I remember that I haven’t done my pentamidine in three weeks. I take the machine down from the shelf and power it up. I can’t find the syringes in the bathroom. I clean the tub. I masturbate. I write my mother another letter. I throw out all three letters to my mother because at this point in my life I’m not particularly fond of her.
Vanity Fair
and
Advocate Men.
Two hours later, I power up the PC. I go to the cabinet for a teacup. The shelf paper needs to be replaced. I reline the shelves. I write my mother another letter. I turn on the PC. My fingers are tense. Worried about carpal tunnel syndrome, I go to the gym to stretch out and relax. I come home and write a letter to my ex-boyfriend. I masturbate. I read a promotional brochure from World Gym on the Upper West Side and decide to join immediately (the special ends in five hours) because it is open twenty-four hours a day, so if I ever feel the urge to write at three-thirty in the morning I will always have an alternative. I realize I’m almost out of paper and take a train downtown to my favorite stationery store and buy a ream of paper and a magazine to read on the subway back home. I turn on my PC. I remember that I haven’t done my pentamidine in three weeks. I take the machine down from the shelf and power it up. I can’t find the syringes in the bathroom. I clean the tub. I masturbate. I write my mother another letter. I throw out all three letters to my mother because at this point in my life I’m not particularly fond of her.
Delivered as a talk at the Publishing Triangle Writers’ Weekend, New York City, October 18, 1992; published in
Art & Understanding,
January/February 1993.
I’m still hazy as to how I was able to write two books. I think a dog named Sam may have dictated them to me while I slept.
2. Wasting TimeOn the other hand, there’s this little voice in the back of my head (I’ve named it “Mom”) that’s constantly telling me not to waste time. We’re living in AIDS time. We’re living in dog years. I may look a little like Drew Barrymore in
Poison Ivy, but
physically I’m a lot closer to Meryl Streep in the final reel of
Death Becomes Her.
The clock is ticking, constantly ticking, like one of those annoying Swatches that you bury in the next room under the socks in the laundry bag when you bring home a trick but you can still hear it ticking, ticking, ticking: It’s like having sex to a metronome. Life is a commercialless episode of “Sixty Minutes” complete with stopwatch, and I don’t want to be tied up in tubes, unable to avoid Andy Rooney’s homespun homilies on my deathbed as Shana Alexander dukes it out with the devil for possession of my immoral soul.
Poison Ivy, but
physically I’m a lot closer to Meryl Streep in the final reel of
Death Becomes Her.
The clock is ticking, constantly ticking, like one of those annoying Swatches that you bury in the next room under the socks in the laundry bag when you bring home a trick but you can still hear it ticking, ticking, ticking: It’s like having sex to a metronome. Life is a commercialless episode of “Sixty Minutes” complete with stopwatch, and I don’t want to be tied up in tubes, unable to avoid Andy Rooney’s homespun homilies on my deathbed as Shana Alexander dukes it out with the devil for possession of my immoral soul.
In a sense everything I do, save work on my stillborn novel and moribund play, is a waste of time: waiting for that epiphany in the Chelsea Gym steam room, writing a review of the
Chore of Gay Sex
for
QW,
shuffling papers at work, writing this piece. I take minor solace that it may eventually end up in my posthumous collection of random pieces,
Life in Hell.
I wonder if they have fax machines in hell so I can get editorial advice for the final page proofs; this probably won’t be necessary, as from past experience I’m sure hell will be filled with editors.
3. Hard QuestionsChore of Gay Sex
for
QW,
shuffling papers at work, writing this piece. I take minor solace that it may eventually end up in my posthumous collection of random pieces,
Life in Hell.
I wonder if they have fax machines in hell so I can get editorial advice for the final page proofs; this probably won’t be necessary, as from past experience I’m sure hell will be filled with editors.
The clock is ticking and there are hard questions that require immediate answers.
Should I buy the co-op in Chelsea and risk getting booted to Bailey House when I lose my job?
Should I go on disability when my T-cells drop below 50?
Should I learn Braille now or later?
It looks as if I can safely retire Proust to the bookshelves, along with nixing reading
The Divine Comedy
in the original Italian. Do I really have to see a once-in-a-lifetime twenty-hours-with-no-intermission theatrical experience presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in an armory sitting on a bench of nails, with my bare feet placed gingerly on a sea of broken glass? It’s only $160, unreserved. In a word, no. With a declining T-cell count and concurrently shrinking lifespan, it’s not inconceivable that Neil Simon’s next might be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me.
The Divine Comedy
in the original Italian. Do I really have to see a once-in-a-lifetime twenty-hours-with-no-intermission theatrical experience presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in an armory sitting on a bench of nails, with my bare feet placed gingerly on a sea of broken glass? It’s only $160, unreserved. In a word, no. With a declining T-cell count and concurrently shrinking lifespan, it’s not inconceivable that Neil Simon’s next might be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me.
I still have to fight this Pavlovian response to be outside whenever it’s sunny because I grew up in Syracuse, New York, the cloudiest city in the continental U.S. save Seattle. Writers relish bad weather. I was particularly happy we had so many rainy days this summer. This has nothing at all to do with the fact that I didn’t purchase a share on Fire Island this summer.
My revised goal in life remains to write five books, preferably published during my lifetime, and reach forty. I’m banking on the hope that I just may be too bitter to die.
4. Helpful HintsI have a few helpful hints for aspiring writers with potentially terminal illnesses.
Carry a pad and pencil everywhere. The best ideas occur when you’re stuck in the tunnel on the E train en route to Queens, trapped on the Stair Master for twenty-four minutes, or pinned against the wall of a back room in the East Village, waiting patiently for someone who looked extremely attractive half an hour and three beers ago and probably will never come.
Laptops are useful in dark environments such as the Prism Gallery : Make sure you have one with a backlit screen.
And finally, buy on credit.
5. Role ModelsThere are role models to follow. My favorite example of the hysterical output of a condemned man is Anthony Burgess, who, when falsely diagnosed with brain cancer, wrote five books in a single year in an attempt to support his soon-to-be widow. Andy Warhol dictated an exceedingly bad novel into a tape recorder over the course of twenty-four hours. Isaac Asimov, who used to pause at regular intervals to slap together a literary greatest-hits collection
(Opus 100, Opus 200,
etc.), once wrote a story while sitting in the display window of a bookstore. If only I had their stamina! It took me practically four months to write a will, and it’s not as if I own anything. I’m sure I’ll never commit suicide, because it would take me too long to write the proper note.
6. Anxiety as Fuel(Opus 100, Opus 200,
etc.), once wrote a story while sitting in the display window of a bookstore. If only I had their stamina! It took me practically four months to write a will, and it’s not as if I own anything. I’m sure I’ll never commit suicide, because it would take me too long to write the proper note.
No matter what I do or think, AIDS remains the subtext, the subliminal humming of that perpetual-motion machine with six rechargeable Energizer batteries hidden in the base. AIDS is always in the background, constant as the beating of my heart. If the virus itself hasn’t yet passed the blood-brain barrier, the idea of the virus has already poisoned my mind. I vacillate between periods of mild anxiety and total hysteria. It takes a while getting used to being HIV-positive. I think it took me two years to modulate my response to a somewhat manageable level of abject terror. I was lucky to have had the time to adjust. Far too many people haven’t.
Anxiety is my fuel, my motivation. Ideally I would have liked to have gotten a false-positive test result when I was ten. Imagine how productive I would have been with this constant high level of anxiety, uncontrollable by any known psychopharmaceutical.
7. The Paradox of the Condemned ManBack in high school when I was a math nerd, I was fascinated by the paradox of the condemned man. A prisoner was told that he would be executed at some time in the next ten days but on a day that he wouldn’t expect it. He reasoned that they couldn’t kill him on the tenth day, because he would expect it. They couldn’t kill him on the ninth day because he knew they couldn’t kill him on the tenth day and therefore would expect to be killed on the ninth. Reasoning backward, he was able to deduce that he couldn’t be killed at all on any of the days. Thus, of course, when he was executed on the seventh day, he didn’t expect it.
My death sentence was announced years ago. I sit here condemned by a mutating virus and a government that refuses to allocate adequate resources toward finding a cure. But everyone is condemned to death the moment they are born. The only certainty is the uncertainty of the date they will expire.
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